Lovely Metal Lock
by CatspawPress
Summary: Molly never thought herself the sort of fool to look at a tiger in a cage and think it a wonderful pet. All she saw was teeth and bone and blood, an animal with an untouchable wild heart.
1. Dyspnea

Chapter One: Dyspnea

Molly never thought herself the sort of fool to look at a tiger in a cage and think it a wonderful pet. All she saw was teeth and bone and blood, an animal with an untouchable wild heart.

She was looking at one such animal now, arm out stretched through a hole in the force field awaiting a blood sample, fingers curled in deceptive relaxation.

She felt his eyes on her skin like a tangible force, the edge of a sharp nail running from wrist to elbow to neck to cheek. Everything about him was dangerous.

"Why aren't we moving, Captain?" The captive's gaze snapping forward, lighting on Captain Kirk's face-twin missiles locking onto a target. "An unexpected malfunction, perhaps in your warpcore, conveniently stranding you on the edge of Klingon space."

Sample collected, Molly retreated away from the clammy orbital of Harrison's body heat. Mumbling something about sample decay, Molly fled the brig not waiting to be dismissed.

The scents of soap and Klingon sand lingered in the recirculated air of the passageway, hitting Molly's sensitive nose and setting her face awash with pins and needles. Unidentifiable aromas settling deep in her lungs.

Once, during her sophomore year at university, Molly had mishandled a beaker full of methylene chloride. She'd been transporting the solvent back to the fume hood when someone had jostled her, casting the beaker and it's contents onto the yellowed tile floor. Grabbing a paper towel, she'd knelt to deal with her mess before anyone could get over the broken beaker, the liquid seeped through her lab coat and jeans. The scent had, at first, seemed pleasant. As the lab wore on, it had become more and more difficult to draw breathe-as though a balloon had inflated under her ribs, there was no room for air.

She remembered with startling clarity the way the solvent's fumes had refused to leave her. Each powerful exhale merely draining her of oxygen faster.

She felt that way now. Some ancient part of her brain told her no lung treatment invented would purge John Harrison's scent from her body.

_Don't be ridiculous, Hooper. You have too much work to do._ With that, Doctor Molly Hooper, Interim Chief Medical Officer of the USS Enterprise pulled herself together and made her way to Medical Research Bay 6.

The very picture of calm, cool, and totally, absolutely, unaffected.

Dyspnea: Difficult breathing; Uncomfortable breathing; Feeling like you are not getting enough air.


	2. Mild Fever

Chapter Two: Mild Fever

"Melvaran mud fleas, really? You'd think McCoy'd have that covered, the way he is about vaccines-"

"That's enough, Ensign. I will not tolerate gossip in my med bay."

Molly actually hardly ever had to deal with conversation in lab, let alone gossip; her usual labmates being decidedly less animated and quite dead. Chief medical officer in Forensic Pathology department located in London-or was before Harrison had shut down all Starfleet operations in the city-Molly and Doctor Leonard McCoy had been collaborating via subspace for years when he'd fallen ill with some kind of Nibiruian parasite. It had similar symptoms as the Melvaran mud flea, but so far with wildly dissimilar reactions to conventional treatments. He'd apparently picked it up from a weird lizard horse thing-whatever she didn't specialize in extraterrestrial classification.

Molly specialized in something exponentially less boring and at least a thousand times more awesome, if slightly more untidy. Life in space took many forms, from the delicate, interlacing neural pathways of the Vulcan brain to the protein capsids protecting the RNA of the recently titled altarian encephalitis, a retrovirus responsible for the death of a young security officer on Alpha Onias III. When all the best efforts of Starfleet's medical forces failed, Molly retro-engineered a cure from a corpse.

She sobered quickly, hoping Leonard wouldn't be the next patient on her table. The door to his office hissed closed as she settled into McCoy's desk, opening and closing drawers in search of a test kit.

Retrieving Harrison's blood sample from the hypospray collection chamber, Molly checked the tricorder results. Hemoglobin, within normal parameters. Oxygen, check. CBC, good._ What's this?_ Harrison's platelet count was off. His cells seemed to be regenerating at unusual rates.

Molly opened McCoy's bottom left drawer, expecting to find clean microscope slides and stains.

She was instead greeted by a drawer filled top to bottom with dead tribbles.

_Seriously, Leonard?_ Scrunching her nose against the slight odor, she reached in pulling the freshest of the litter onto the tabletop-a resounding "why" echoing in her head. A half remembered conversation moved to the forefront of her thoughts. _Testing medication on necrotic tissue? _Definitely something Leonard would do. _As good a place to start as any._

Molly pulled the vial from the scanner, nebulous electricity emitted from the simple tube, pricking her skin through the latex glove. The 21c of the room was suddenly stifling.

"Feeling okay, Dr. Hooper?"

Confused, Molly looked up at Lieutenant Vlahovic. "What? No. I mean yes, why do you ask?"

"Scanner's showing a slight spike in your body temperature. There's been a fever going round the campus, some of the crew's been reporting symptoms. Nothing to be worried about, but I'd watch your fluids for the next couple days"

"Thank you, Lieutenant."

Molly did a mental calculation. Something must be wrong with her medication, she'd have to run a blood test later.

Ever since high school, Molly'd been on a series of suppressants, most of her own invention, that dramatically altered her bodies natural hormone cycle.

Just after her fourteenth birthday, Molly began experiencing all the normal symptoms of burgeoning adulthood-spots and general awkwardness being the chief presentation. Molly got her first period in music class after suffering from bad "stomach aches" for days. Her father, a widowed chip shop owner, had no idea how to deal with this new version of his daughter and, being typically british, avoided the subject altogether.

It wasn't until months later, talking with her girlfriends at school that she realized her worsening pms was at all unusual. It always started with a light fever and intense, sensual dreams. Last chance dreams, she'd secretly deemed them. She'd be awake all night with sweats and chills. Then the pain would set in.

Every three months she'd have flare ups coinciding with her cycle. A slow build up that culminated in severe cramps, leaving her writhing in her room and delirious with fever for days. Seeing no other options, the doctors put her on an old style anti-ovulatant; chalking the strangely high fevers and pain up to severe endometriosis.

Sweat trickled beneath the collar of her science blues. She hadn't had to deal with this in years.

"Kirk to Hooper," Molly's comm chirped, "Report to Shuttle Bay 10 to assist Lieutenant Marcus. She needs a pair of steady hands."

Molly looked down at her own hands, flushed and shaking with fever.

"Hooper to Kirk, I'm sorry captain, but I seem to have contracted the fever circulating campus. I'd like to recommend Commander Seung for the assignment."

"Approved, have her report in five minutes."


	3. Elevated Heart Rate

Chapter Three: Elevated Heart Rate

Molly blinked away irrational tears as she looked at the results of her blood test, confirming her earlier suspicions. Her body had become acclimated to her current anti-ovulant, apparently it had been ineffective for quite sometime according to the build up of hormones in her blood. It was the highest she'd ever seen it.

_No matter I'll just_-Molly's thoughts were cut off by the _whish_ of the door as Command Sueng and Lieutenant Marcus were escorted to med bay.

"What is that?" Molly asked, focus immediately sharpening deal with the problem before her.

"We're not sure yet." Marcus replied while Commander Sueng began ordering scans and tests from the staff.

"You'd better take look, Doctor Hooper. You've never seen anything like this."

Molly approached the missile (or missile casing as she was soon to find out), looking into what must have been the fuel compartment. The face that greeted her was eerily still and featureless, obscured for the most part by frost and ice crystals.

"What the hell…" Molly whispered, tailing off.

His scent, sand, soap, and a sticky curl of methylene chloride, reached her before she registered the sound of heavy boots in the hallway outside. She could feel her pulse throbbing in time to the footfalls, each step reverberating in her fingertips.

She met his eyes as he crossed the threshold, escorted into med bay by six security officers. Heart racing, she looked up at him from her microscope expecting to be impaled by the razor focus of his gaze. She was met instead with curiosity-and heat.

Something in the background was making noise. With difficulty, Molly shook off the terrifying intensity of Harrison's stare and turned toward the sound. She watched with rapt attention to the shipwide broadcast, the captain and the admiral revealing John Harrison's true identity.

_Khan? Where have I heard that before?_

The broadcast ended, the ship shifting into warp a signal to return to duty. Moving into the circle of armed guards, Molly picked up a tricorder with shaking hands, ready to begin her examination of Commander Harri-Khan.

Affecting a cheery tone despite her increasing awareness of him, Molly smiled, "At least we're moving again." Her voice not altogether steady.

"If you think you're safe at warp,you're wrong." Khan responded, his blue eyes cutting past nerve and bone, sending anothering crashing wave of blood surging throughout her body.

She couldn't breath, everything around her was stifling.

_Bloody fever again_. She thought, distracted by a wave of dizziness.

"Doctor Hooper?"

The ship suddenly lurched, throwing Molly into Harrison, claxons blaring. His hands clamped around her forearms, catching and pulling her against his chest. Her face lodged in his neck and she was immediately overwhelmed by the scent and heat of his body. Without meaning to she clenched her fists into his arm, leaving ten half moon slices. The blaring claxon sunk into the background as she became slowly aware of the blood moving under his skin. For all his affected coolness, his heart was pumping just as fast as hers.


	4. Disorientation

Chapter 4: Disorientation

Khan pushed himself off the floor, the female protectively settled underneath him. The heat of her body seared his chest through the Starfleet standard issue black knit turtle neck, her scent briefly making his vision go dark.

Khan exhaled forcefully, trying to clear the omega's pheromones from nose. He opened his mouth slightly, trying to limit his exposure to her scent. The heavy musk settled on the back of his pallet, more distracting than the faint traces of latex and talc had been.

_Distance. Get away from her._

It took Khan a moment to convince his body obey his mind as he hovered stupidly over the little doctor's unconscious body. Limbs pulsing, he pulled himself back onto the examination table.

What was she doing here? Better question still, how had Admiral Marcus found her, the last of her kind being killed off in the great war?

His thoughts were interrupted by a soft keening from the woman on the floor. Every muscle in his body clenched as he fought his instinct to go to her, his cock stiffening from firm to iron bar.

A red shirt registered in his periphery, his armored guard apparently no worse for wear. Khan forced his body to relax, a look of blank readiness on his face.

The door to med bay swished open, the zealous Captain Kirk striding straight for him.

"Tell me everything you know about that ship." A look of hard determination suffused in every line of the Captain's face.

"Dreadnought class. Two times the size, three times the speed. Advanced weaponry. Modified for a minimal crew. Unlike most Federation vessels, it's built solely for combat." Khan replied cooly.

"I will do everything I can to make you answer for what you did," Kirk stated, feebly trying to cow Khan with the ferocity of his stare. They stayed like that for a moment, locked in silent conversation as they both explained how dangerous they were to one another. Kirk's gaze flickered, "But right now I need your help."

"In exchange for what?"

"You said you'd do anything for your crew. I can guarantee their safety."

"Captain, you can't even guarantee the safety of your own crew."

The female stirred on the ground regaining consciousness. The movement brought a fresh wave of awareness coursing through Khans body, the blood throbbing in his mouth and fingertips. Someone moved to tend her, fingers stretched inexorably toward the omega's face to check her skull for damage.


	5. Lower Abdominal Pain

Chapter 5: Lower abdominal pain

_Molly, _Khan kept rolling the word across his tongue, tasting each letter, round with talc and salt. Such an ordinary name for such a rare creature.

She'd obviously never been in cycle with an alpha near by, her omega phenotype completely subsumed by chemical suppressants-A typical human reaction to nature's self expression. Khan had barely even registered her presence at first, her scent the merest flicker as she exited the brig-wet pavement and sun warmed wood. Whatever medication she'd been taking had clearly burned away in the heat fever-the perimeter around the medbay a fecund puddle of talc and pine and ready cunt. He felt the blood pool painfully in his knot just remembering the encounter. He hadn't been this affected by an omega's heat since - _since Eleana_*.

Khan cut off the thought abruptly, focus interrupted as he crashed into a floating piece of bulkhead in the debris field separating the Enterprise and his slave ship.

_Get back on course._

Khan let his hate fuel him, seventy-two lives hanging in the balance. He would destroy Marcus, bone by bone. And afterward, she-Molly, he relished the word in his mouth-would be his reward.

The omega adaptation had been formulated by Doctor Minna Kelly. Created in response to Hitler's aggressive eugenics experimentation, the Augment project could be characterized by three words "failure to thrive." Believing in man's dominance over nature, early geneticists created synthetic nutrient chambers, artificial uteruses, and gene delivery systems. Only to be met with corpse after corpse. The fetuses were withering from a deficiency no genetic splicing or specially formulated nutrient supplement could fulfill- a mother's love.

Invitro fertilization was invented to address this failure, it's success ushering in the first generation of thriving augmented humans-Or so they thought. Like blight ridden potato's, the second generation augments proved prone to neurological disorders, their offspring more likely to be born with down syndrome and other disabilities. The population hadn't been designed with enough genetic diversity to sustain itself.

It took a woman to point out the futility of fighting nature.

The next generation's design focused on awakening latent genes - the large brains from ancient hunter-gatherer ancestors, the ruthless skill and dexterity of generals and war chieftains, even pulling traits animal kingdom. Instead of fighting nature or trying to control it, she created a self sustaining population of stronger, smarter, more capable humans.

As the augments matured, researchers started to notice subtle genetic differences between certain groups, fitting them into three categories: Alpha, Beta, Omega. When they reached puberty, the differences became more pronounced.

Alpha augments, representing a relatively small percent of the population, were charismatic, displaying strength and cunning that far surpassed their beta or omega brothers and sisters. They fell naturally into leadership roles, causing the population to splinter into multiple sects. Alphas were usually male, with a few notable exceptions. These augments tended to be more prone to savage emotional outbursts and were quick to violence. Though they represented only 10 percent of the population, they were responsible for roughly a third of deaths on the "Adolescents Compound."

Beta augments, composing nearly 85 percent of the population, displayed the most diversity in traits and personality, fulfilling the roles of Lieutenants, Advisors, Intriguers, Engineers, and Medics. This group of augments showed the most genetic similarity to natural humans.

Omega augments, rarest of the sects, were the most even tempered of the three classifications. These augments tended to be female and could navigate between warring groups with ease. Their presence in an alpha gang often lead to fewer armed conflicts between opposing clans. For whatever reason, the alphas seemed to find their presence soothing.

The reason soon became apparent. Out of all the augments, omegas were best suited for carrying young, reaching the peak of their fertility in heats every three months. Omega's were most attractive to Alphas, forming strong, and often permanent, pair bonds.

Once this particular trait became apparent, researchers attempted to breed omega males and females together. However, mating among two omegas proved very difficult, the pregnancies often resulting in miscarriage or stillbirth. After two omega females died delivering dead children, Doctor Kelly - Mother MInna she insisted being called - terminated the breeding program.

Omegas held a sacred position in augment society, honored for their sole ability to create and nurture healthy young. A fatal flaw that became apparent when the augments were released into the human population. During the Great war, once humans had figured out their importance, omegas had been systematically hunted and exterminated.

Khan closed his eyes, pushing back the onslaught of memories, faces of beloved brothers and sisters flashing across his eyes in an endless stream. He remembered without wanting to the corpse of his own mate, found beaten and violated on his doorstep one morning. Her body a tomb for the twin sons growing in her womb. So many lives lost to human prejudice and fear.

The last omega of their kind had be kidnapped in 1994 as a means of forcing the augments off planet, the humans finally recognizing the futility of continued violence against a superior race. She'd been executed in 1997, the record of her death surviving the dark age that followed, but apparently not before she'd mated a human, protecting the line.

_Clever girl,_ Khan distractedly slammed an officer's head against a server tower. He hoped her offspring proved equally clever.

*Named for Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine - So nice she was Queen twice


	6. Sweats and Chills

Chapter 6: Sweats and Chills

Molly had been dreaming of hands. Thousands of knuckles and fingernails stroking over every square centimeter of her skin arranged in kaleidoscopic configuration, fine boned and long fingered. Dimly, she was aware that she recognized the hands and who they belonged to, but in the safety of her dream she allowed herself to forget. Forget that the hands she longed for had once circled someone else's throat in malice-the ridiculous, wild part of her gloried in the deceptive delicacy of their killer instincts, their strength as they pressed into her skin.

The ground was moving. Or was it that her legs were too weak to hold her up? She came back to awareness slowly, registering her back on a spartan cot first. Next it was her wrists, bound in soft cuffs, she must have been thrashing in her sleep. It was so hot, oppressive. She needed to move her body, relieve some of the pressure mounting in her hips, her back, her calves.

A woman walked by, a blue blur in her periphery. "Please," she croaked, not sure what she was asking for. The nurse touched something cold to Molly's lips, she sucked, greedy, taking ice and fingers into her mouth. The simple command, take sustenance, had soothed her, giving Molly a purpose beyond the pain in her nipples, the persistent oversensitivity of her skin-A thousand million Nibiruian fleas crawling over her. _Save me. Save me. Save me._ She could see their RNA unraveling and bonding to Leonard's, unable to remember why it was important-Her entire purpose focused between her legs.

None of it made sense. She could still smell him on her hands, his dried blood trapped under her fingernails. He was here why wouldn't he come to her? _I need_\- She didn't even know, just that she was empty, an appetite nothing could quench.

She was salt everywhere, her body shaking as the sweat evaporated away. For one second she was at peace, the molecules of her body still and silent. With sudden force her blood started moving again, a fiery storm scorching her veins and capillaries. The bonds were gone, the surface against her back softer than before. She'd been transported somewhere. The light was different, easier on her fever bright eyes. She lifted her head, looking around what must have a captain's quarters.

Claxons, shaking, tipping, tumbling. She was on the floor. Nothing made sense.

A man burst through the door-Khan, her foggy mind supplied.

He dropped to one knee beside her, hands streaking like vipers to elbow and waist, poison electricity spilling from his fingertips-pulling her in. He buried his nose in her neck. Scenting her, she realized, the blood in her veins freezing and melting at once. Her chin snapped up as she tried to push herself closer.

Khan shook her a little, trying to get her attention, his hands clenching and releasing her thin paper gown. He was saying something, trying to get her to leave. She didn't want to, there was a bed here, it was soft and nice. Something in his voice changed.

"Get up, little one." She did, his command had the same soothing effect as the nurses. "That's right, now follow me."

They ran through smokey corridors, sparks flying everywhere, bouncing off her skin. She'd never been on this type of ship, it's layout completely foreign to her. They arrived in a nearly empty shuttle bay. _That's not right there should be dozens-_a hand closed around her wrist, cutting off her last attempt at coherence.

Khan pulled her into the last undamaged shuttle near the back of the hanger. He kept talking, nonsense syllables. She surged up on her tiptoes catching him unawares, pressing a hard kiss against his soft mouth. She could feel the grooves of his teeth through her lips.

His reaction was instant and explosive, a feral growl escaping his throat and crawling in slow strokes down Molly's spine. He lifted as she climbed, her hands on his shoulders, legs steel bars around his narrow waist. Khan held her pressed against the cold steel plating of the emergency escape shuttle, hands skimming her ribs, holding her up with a thigh between her legs. For a moment the entire universe held its' breath, their tongues engaged in a battle for dominance neither was sure they could win.

The ship lurched again, breaking them apart. _More words_, she knows how to stop him now. Something cold slipped around her wrist. He crawled away, she tried to follow. A chain clanged, jerking her wrist.

"No,please,"She cried, frustrated tears streaming down her face. "Khan, it hurts-"

The door separating the passenger's section from navigation closed with a hiss.


	7. Arousal

Chapter 7: Arousal

He needed five minutes, just five minutes to get out of this flaming coffin.

_Neik__!*_

His hands were shaking-He could feel his blood cells banging into each other.

He knew later he would absorb the fact that his entire family had been slaughtered. He would take the time to remember each of their names, releasing them back to the universe, visualize the scattered molecules of their bodies falling to earth-rain to nourish withered grass.

Right now he had a confused omega female locked in the back of his shuttle-a last chance at life.

Khan quickly programmed the auto-pilot, letting the shuttle's AI choose the safest place to land. He could figure out the rest later-each breath flooding his senses. He'd never been so aware of his body, never waited this long to mate an in-season female.

He navigated out of the Defiance's wreckage, a flicker of relief registering under adrenaline and untethered lust-A slave ship built, beaten, and destroyed. Engaging the auto-pilot as they cleared the debris field, he rose from the captain's chair, stumbling, dizzy with fever. He fell against the locked compartment door. Her scent was stronger here. He entered the unlock sequence. The door wouldn't open, an inflectionless voice saying something about authorization codes. Khan released a feral growl, punching the control panel. His fist was bleeding, sparks ricocheting off his sleeve when the door opened.

She's lying on the floor, legs bent in open invitation. She pulled weakly at the reinforced collar of the paper medical gown, trying to get chafing garment off.

Khan fell to his knees immediately, the front of his thighs bracketing the back of hers, ripping the flimsy gown in half. Molly's tongue ghosted over his sore knuckles, taking in the salt and adrenaline tang of his blood. Her body surged up to meet his, an iron filing trapped by his magnetism. Every piece of her available skin was pressed against the wool poly of Khan's Starfleet regulation shirt and slacks. She gave a small frustrated huff he understood instantly, fingers already moving his hem. Once they were skin to skin, he let his hands travel along the indents of her muscles and bones-ribs to scapula to spine. Reaching his goal, he took her neck in iron hand, a thumb forcing her chin up-revealing the soft spot just beneath the ear and jaw. He buried his face there, breathing her in. Indulging his instincts, Khan let his teeth play with the soft skin, savoring the pulse of her carotid artery, before pulling back and looking into her eyes- pupils blown black and glassy.

"Open your heart. Will you open your heart?" He tried to be tender, knowing it's what she needed. His hands moved down her body, pausing to admire the hard press of her hip bone against the joint of his thumb and the answering tilt of her body against his. Her whispered reply ran up his neck, barely a breath, "No."

Gentle hands tightened, taking control of her hips. He slammed into her, the slick heat of her arousal making the way easy and tight. Fully seated, he ground his pubic bone against her clit.

"Open your heart." The heat of her body melting away whatever human mercy he had left.

"No," louder this time, her hips moving against his. He withdrew,letting his body express his frustrated displeasure. The pace he set was hard, meant to punish, but giving them both exactly what they needed.

"Open your heart." He could feel himself swelling inside her, an animal of pure instinct.

He bit into her shoulder when she yelled no a third time, her orgasm pulling him in deeper, her center clenching around his knot.

"El-Sheitan Alaykom!**" He needed her to say it, that they were the last of their kind and they belonged to each other. "Open your heart to me!" He floods her womb, her sweet cunt milking every last drop of his seed. He's covered in sweat, the blood from her shoulder smeared across his lips and cheek.

She was pushing at his shoulders, he must be heavy. Lifting himself onto his elbows, he looked the omega-_Molly_\- in the face.

"Please, I need-I would like to wash." Her voice steady and coherent, fever abated- for a few hours at least.

"Of course, there's a sonic shower just there." He said pointing to the small compartment, the conversation oddly stilted.

Khan rummaged around the small compartment, replicating emergency rations and water. Locating a small standard issue black slacks and turtle neck, he laid out his merger offering-an overly sweeten protein bar and a coarse sweater to match his own. Khan gathered up his own clothing, donning them on this way to the navigation panel. They would be touching down in a few short minutes somewhere near the coast of Japan.

She still hadn't come out. Khan pressed his face close to the locked compartment door, voice deliberate and gentle. "Molly, we're preparing to land. You need dress and strap yourself in."

She opened the door a few inches, reaching out a hand. "Please, can you hand me-" He wrenched the door open, revealing her naked, but clean, body. Her scent hit him anew-The sun after rain. He stared for a moment, meeting her eyes before handing over the shirt and slacks. He turned his back, leaving the door wide open. He could hear the fabric scrap across her skin as he seated himself in the pilot's chair, using his sleeve to wipe away the crusty remnants of her blood..

"You will sit here, Molly." he said, indicating the seat next to him. Obediently, she strapped herself in.

* Arabic: Fuck

**Arabic: Satan be upon you!


	8. Ovulation

Chapter 8: Ovulation

Molly stood, arms folded, _serene,_ before a wall of floor to ceiling windows overlooking the sun-bright tokyo skyline. She wanted to pace, relieve some of the electricity settling into her joints. It was starting again. Molly resisted twitching her shoulders, the zipper of her soft long-sleeve lavender sheath beginning to scrape the delicate skin at the back of her neck, the matching mohair cowl vest suffocating her. Molly let her eyes rest on the mountain peeking between impossibly high skyscrapers. If she concentrated, breathing in for six counts and out for six the way her vulcan roommate, T'Lena, had taught her, she could almost ignore the creeping, persistent static crackle gathering under her skin.

She knew Khan was watching her-feeling her-his surveillance pallable even from the small study across the sparse black and white sitting room where she stood. The bedroom was conspicuously empty, both parties avoiding the space-Molly, to deny the pieces of herself that liked what she and the monster did in there. Khan, to still her hostility and demonstrate...consideration, worthiness as a mate? She wasn't sure, his behavior over the last days only serving to confuse her.

Molly had seen the reports of the devastation wrought on San Francisco-lists of dead or wounded revealing colleague after colleague-watching the news vids when Khan left the spacious hotel suite to bring food and other supplies. Her own name occasionally flashed across the screen, LtCdr. Molly Magdalena Hooper, Chief Medical Officer-missing, presumed dead.

They'd landed three days ago in an automated recycling center on the northern outskirts of Tokyo prefecture. The sparks from the saw blade as it cut into their shuttle indelibly imprinted in her memory, the lack of emergency shuttles on the Vengeance suddenly apparent. He'd launched each one in a different direction, it would be days before Starfleet tracked them all down, weeks before they noticed this one was missing.

No one was coming to rescue her. The realization sat stark on her forehead, noise from the plant covering her exhalation. Khan tugged her arm, ushering her to one of the waste collection units. She resisted, digging her heel into the dirt flood. He lifted her onto his shoulder, her fist's merely anyonances on his back. The unit took off, bringing them quickly to a neat residential street, crowded with small town house on both sides.

Khan stood for a moment, taking in the details of the neighborhood, before choosing a house. He shouldered the door open, the sound of his body hitting the reinforced steel surprisingly soft. He held the door open for her, like he hadn't kidnapped her and they were normal.

"After you." He said, meeting her gaze, the deep timbre of his voice setting sparks to raw nerves. She had wanted to kiss him, the thought repulsing her as her pupils began to dilate. His nostrils flared, catching her scent. The heavy exhalation pushed a curl of methylene chloride down her neck and across her collarbone.

"What are we doing here, Khan?" She asked, anger clear in her voice, feet planted firmly on the porch's concrete steps.

"I-," He pauses, not sure how to handle her opposition. "I thought you might like to rest." Molly holds his stare for a moment, assessing the situation. She settles on cooperation, telling herself that she's merely bargaining for time so she can safely escape. The house is tiny and cluttered, a living room leading into a disorganized galley kitchen, visible through the the pass-through at the back wall. Molly starts pacing, making a show of looking at the posters taped to the wall. She can't stop moving, fingers beating a restless tattoo against her thigh.

Khan's eye's snapped to the movement, silently observing her as he replicated their meal. A trickle of sweat ran between her shoulder blades when Khan set the plate down in front of her, the scent of whatever curry he made souring her stomach. She pushed the plate away, the tiny room too small for her to release the frustrated tension building behind her knees.

"Would you like to change?" Khan asked just as she's starting to notice the rough weave of the turtle neck she's wearing. The thought of something soft on her skin was enough to alleviate any guilt she might have felt about stealing someone else's clothing.

He lead her upstairs into a master bedroom. The closet was stuffed with a colorful array of tunics, tights, dresses, and soft sweaters. Molly fingers settled on a light periwinkle slip, the sheer matte silk cool against her skin.

"You would look beautiful in that." Khan says from behind her, his hands on her hips turning Molly to face him. He is the ocean, she is the beach. They crash together, pulled by each other's gravity. His hands are on her skin immediately, roughly pulling off the scratchy sweater. They have sex for the second time, pouring over each other in a stranger's bed.

Molly's finger twitched at the memory, no longer able to contain the hormone-laced energy poisoning her blood.

"Come to me." He called softly, the shift in the air from the small movement calling him back into the room.

"No." She wanted to, the iron in her blood pulled by his ferromagnetic gaze. He moved slowly, walking across the room, shifting his body to look at her directly. She met his eyes, rich earth dissolving into an arctic sea.

"Come to me" He said again, voice dark and low with authority, "I want to touch you. I want the things which are mine, which belong to me."

"I don't belong to you." His hand streaked to her neck, thumb lightly caressing her carotid artery. Her pulse was racing, but she was not afraid. His lips twisted in a sinister half smile.

"Yes, you do, little one. Just as I belong to you." His mouth was soft, but insistent on her lips, the hand at her throat angling her face to his. She lets him. Deep in her heart, her stupid weak hormone flooded brain, she knew that he was right. She does belong to him.

Molly takes control of the kiss, for if she belongs to Khan, then he also belongs to her. _El-Sheitan Alaykom._

A sharp pain wakes her from blurry fog spun dreams, fading as she drifts back into sleep wrapped in a nest of skin, Khan's arms and legs enfolding her. Her obstetrics rotation played over and over as her eyes twitched behind heavy lids.

"Implantation cramping can occur in some women between six and twelve days following ovulation." Her attending droned on in front the patient he had been attending. "Implantation cramps feel like light pricking or pulling pains and occur in the lower abdomen around a week before the woman is due to get their period. The cramps are due to some of the uterine mucous membrane melting at the implantation site. This allows the fertilized egg to better attach to the uterine wall."

She puts it all together the next morning, combing through her wet hair at the sink, Khan in the shower behind her. The realization hits her like a door snapping shut, a cage with a lovely metal lock.

**Arabic: Satan be upon you!


	9. Pregnacy

Chapter 9: Pregnancy

Khan sat across from his mate, Molly's nimble doctor's hands slicing steadily through the pile of produce she'd requested from the space station's market, the the brilliant quartz and rosewood kitchen island gleaming beneath bright pendant lights in their rented kitchen-The starship they'd call home would be ready the next morning.

A white plastic pill bottle sat between them, increasingly noticeable as the counter filled with washed and quartered greens. She still hadn't started taking the prenatal vitamins, she hadn't acknowledged their child in anyway.

They'd left Tokyo the same afternoon Molly's heat had broken, the wreckage of San Francisco still smoldering an ocean away. After ten days in the city, Khan had been anxious to leave. This planet was too small, he'd decided. Like the minds of it's inhabitants, Earth couldn't contain him. His mate and child deserved better than pointless squabbles over grains of sand. His sons would have entire star system as their playground, his daughters would wear dilithium crowns.

They left Tokyo as Erik and Magdelena Kelly, Molly's eyes dull when the stranger's name displayed at the shuttleports biometric check points.

"Kelly?" Molly asked, the first words she'd spoken since she'd said she didn't belong to him.

"Someone who loved me." He replied looking straight into her eyes. She met his gaze for a moment, her eyes flicking over his face before turning away, a wisp of hair curling against her neck just behind her ear. He traced the line with his fingertip, relishing the involuntary shiver it produced. By the time they reached Kabul, everyone on the shuttle was restless-the tension between the pair so thick it invaded every corner of the the craft.

A cab dropped them off on a nondescript, quiet street, identical rows of arches and columns lining the sidewalk. They walked into the hotel, Khan's hand resting just beneath Molly's shoulder blades. That's when he felt it, the first tentative curl of a pair bond forming, the loose strings of their souls unraveling to weave themselves into a new tapestry.

Their eyes met again, the strings pulled taunt with panic as Molly felt it too. He kissed her then, not caring that the hotel's manager could hear her soft exhalation. They break apart, the scent of her arousal and the new life she nurtured filling the air between them.

"Something with a balcony, and a fast data connection. When will we leave for Cairo?" Molly asked, her voice steady and firm.

"A few days, there won't be a shuttle off-planet until next week." Khan fingered the bite on her shoulder, remembering the mark he'd left, the skin still pink and shiny even after he'd administered his regenerative blood to heal it.

For a few days, they lived as Mr. and Mrs. Kelly before leaving the city behind them, traveling first to Cairo then to Mars Space Station. There Khan commissioned a small starship with an inheritance stolen from Admiral Marcus.

"What are you making, my heart?"

Molly's eyes flicked up to Khan's face, her knife still as she glared. She hated the endearment. "A mushroom and arugula lentil salad; citrus grilled salmon; warm, sweet, molasses figs for dessert." She replied, addressing the counter, "An old family recipe."

Khan started, time slipping away from him. He remembered having the same meal on Adolescents Compound two hundred years ago. He'd been sitting on a hard steel stool, Eleana standing with Mother Minna over her own gigantic pile of kale and the smell of orange zest lingering in the air. A meal rich in folic acid and iron.

"Perfect for growing babes." Dr. Kelly had crooned, her normally hard features softening as she cupped her hands around Eleana's round cheeks. "I teach it to all the girls."

"What shall we call him, since you're so sure it's a boy?" Molly's voice dragged him back to the present.

"I've always liked Edmund*." Khan replied cooly, "There was a brilliant english king of that name." It was also her father's name, Khan had found it in her mother's obituary. _A loving wife, mother, and teacher, Matilda Hooper is survived by her husband, Edmund Hooper, and her daughter Molly._

Molly paused her chopping for a moment, a slight catch in the otherwise steady rhythm. "Tell me more about this king." She responded, dumping the arugula and kale into a large wooden salad bowl. They finish their meal amicably, the conversation flowing easily from kings to each other's lives and childhoods to small glimpses of secrets and long held desires.

They make love for the first time ever on the couch, dirty plates on still on the kitchen island. Afterward, Molly light on his chest, he felt the slow trickle of a tear sliding past his breast and ribs.

"What's wrong, Molly?" His hand touched her chin, tipping her face up.

"Nothing, my heart." She responded with a watery smile. "I'm just tired. Take me to bed."

He does, settling the crisp sheet around their bodies and pulling her into the safety of his arms.

He didn't understand right away what was happening, just that he and his mate were in danger. He bolted awake, reaching to pull Molly behind him. His hand caught only air.

"Molly!" He called out, his eyes still adjusting. Figures began to materialize in the darkness.

One stepped forward, "She's not here, Khan." Captain Kirk crossed the bedroom, magnetized restraints in hand "And you are under arrest."

I'm just going to put this right here:

watch?v=VhZ_4slI6xA

wgbh/nova/next/tech/biometrics-and-the-future-of-identification/

wiki/Edmund_Ironside


	10. Bonding

Chapter 10: Bonding

Molly watched Khan on a vid screen, safe in a cloud of starfleet admirals and officials. He stood perfectly still, spine straight, legs apart, fingers curled. She was sitting in a dreary, overly air-conditioned conference room on the mars starbase. Authoritative voices filled the air around her, like so many bees. One voice carried above the rest.

"Don't be barbaric, Commander Th'Sheena, Khan is too valuable to execute. Admiral Marcus didn't handle him properly."

Molly burst out laughing, seeing for a moment the way Khan must have seen them. "He's manipulating you. You know that right. That is exactly what he wants. There isn't a prison or planet that could contain him, not without me. He will rip the galaxy to shreds to find me. He know's that I am not weak, so he is counting on you to fail." Every eye was on her, admirals and princes still as they all realized that she is the most powerful person in the room. "You think that he seems calm and civilized? It is because he knows I am here, my scent is reaching him on the currents of re-circulated air. If you cannot kill him, then put him back in his cryotube to sleep until someone stronger can."

"What ever Khan may deserve," Captain Kirk's voice rose above the din, his eyes meeting hers with unbearable sympathy. "He's entitled to a fair trial."

Molly leaves the conference room then, sick to her stomach- the life inside her restless.

_Leonard must have told him. _Molly stalked down the hall aimlessly, furious at the breach in privacy. She'd been subjected to medical tests after her rescue, the med bay crew prepared for the worst and surprised to find her in perfect glowing health. The first tricorder exam had revealed the pregnancy, as Molly knew it would.

"No one can know, Leonard." She'd said grabbing his forearm.

"They'll think it's his." She'd wanted to say, the prepared words straining to get out. She couldn't, not to Leonard. McCoy looked at her, his face wiped clean of his usual irritated impatience. "Molly, do you want to be pregnant?"

"I wasn't-it wasn't-" She stopped turning away and closing her eyes against the truth, her tears dripping past her jaw and sliding down her neck. "Yes." The word escaped on an exhale, McCoy's hand warm on the skin of her shoulder over the thin straps of her white night gown.

She did love Khan, in whatever way a captive can love a captor - an omega love an alpha. She wanted this child

She remembered one night, wakened by the cold beginning to permeate their bedroom, when she'd found him on the balcony over looking Kabul, soft rain just beginning to dampen his dark hair. Seated on one of the stone benches, he'd been whispering something she couldn't make out at first. As she approached the soft murmurs sharpened into paused in the doorway, sheltered from the cold drops.

"...Phoolan Dasall, Joaquin Weiss, Suzette Ling, Armando Rodriguez, Otto Kelly, Liam MacPherson, Geir Jonsson, Vishwa Patil, Harulf Ericsson, Zuleika Walker, Gideon Hawkins, Dmitri Blasko, Parvati Rao, Daniel Katzel, Amy Katzel, Nadia Gorinksy, Eric Lutjen, Paul Austin, Karyn Bradley, Keith Talbot, Saraj Panjabi, Ali Rahman, Kamala Devi, Hans Steiber, Marcel Dumas, Juliette Savine, Debra VonLinder, Shirin Azar, Vijay Nikore, Yolanda Aponte-"

He paused in his litany, his breathe caught in his throat, unable to move on. She'd felt his sorrow like a bone in her throat- she couldn't draw breath around the weight of his anguish. She drifted forward, not aware of what she'd done until a cold drop hit her face. In that moment she knew, whether it was because of whatever chemicals had drawn them together, or just that when she laid his goodness next to his savagery it created a wild landscape she couldn't wait to explore. She loved him. It was an immutable fact. Molly laid her hand on Khan's should, sliding along the slope until her hand rested on the opposite corner of his jaw. He leaned his head into her soft, still flat stomach, releasing the last names on his list with a sigh.

"Eleana Noonien Singh, Tomas Noonien Singh, Malik Noonien Singh."

The plan had begun as a remembered dream, a thousand fleas swarming her skin. The solution occurred to her as Khan traced his fingers over the shiny oval where his teeth had broken her skin. It had taken two hours after he'd administered his blood for the jagged bite to close. Even with dermal-plasts it would take atleast a day for such a deep wound to heal.

There was still a full sample vial of Khan's blood in Leonard's desk on the Enterprise.

Every time Khan left to replenish supplies, Molly would spend hours bombarding any StarFleet comm should could access. A five second message that would play automatically and then delete itself from both systems. "Cure for Niburian parasites is on the Enterprise in the chief medical officer's desk." It was days before she got a reply. A news story about the remarkable recovery of a StarFleet Medical Officer and new powerful cure for some off the deadliest off-planet diseases, "This new treatment could save thousands of StarFleet Officers." The news anchor chirped. And so it went, Molly sending messages and StarFleet trying to find and decode them.

Molly had been in the market when she'd heard the last broadcast, rifling through a basket of greens. "And residents of Mars Starbase can look forward to the Perseid meteor shower tonight at 01:15. It promises to be quite a show. Now back to Tom with the headlines."

When the officers crept into the apartment using the security codes she'd sent in her last message, Molly fought a sudden and intense desire to rouse Khan, freezing in his arms, terrified of betraying herself.

The remembered minutes swam past in a blur, Khan shouting her name a knife on her skin. She arrived at her quarters drained, the strain of bad memories and early pregnancy pulling at her joints. She hadn't been able to sleep since those few hours before Kirk and his team had arrived to rescue her. _I may never sleep again._ She flopped on the bed only to fall into fitful dream-filled sleep. She woke a few hours later still exhausted, but full of restless energy. Pulling a robe over the loose grey tank top and blue wide leg pants she'd worn to bed, Molly walked laps around her tiny quarters. Frustrated, she moved into the corridor, lights dimmed for gamma shift.

Molly's pacing brought her to the hallway outside Khan's cell, the hum of the force field ringing in her ears. She stopped in the corridor for a long moment before deciding to go in, quickly flashing her StarFleet credentials at the guard and dismissing the ensign assigned to Khan's cell.

"You do not look well, Little one." Khan said from the cot in his cell, looking Molly in the eye.

"It seems I can no longer sleep without you." Khan's icey blank face shifted briefly before settling back into hardness.

"Why, Molly." He whispered, the buzz of the force field between them almost drowning out his words.

Anger overwhelmed her, all of the frustration and futile resistance building into a tidal wave of rage, "Because you are a monster! You have killed hundreds of innocent people, Khan! You deserve this cell. You deserve-" Molly's voice cracked, the tide of her emotions turning.

"Why did you have to be like this?" She asked Khan, falling to her knees, too exhausted to stay upright, tears clotting her eye lashes. "I didn't do anything Khan, why do I deserve this."

Molly looked up, the silence settling over them like snow. Khan's face was completely covered by his hands, as if unable to face everything his selfish ambition had cost him.

"There is going to be a trial, Khan." Molly said her voice calm again.

Khan laughed lightly, his hands sliding to his thighs, "Of course."

"They want to imprison you again." Khan freezes, but waits for her to continue. Molly struggled to find words to explain what she needed from him. Finally she walked over to control station accessing the port used to pass food through the force field. She opened the portal, allowing her unmuted scent to carry into the cell-the wave of methylene chloride moving over her in a rush.

Khan's eyes widen, registering the nascent threads of cardamon beneath talc and wet pavement. Khan surged out of the cot, powerful legs bringing him to the portal in two strides. He reached through and gently clasped her wrist. Khan's teary smile, matched her own.

"Did anyone tell you about -" Molly asked, the names of his seventy-two crew members lilting through her mind.

"Yes." Khan interrupts clasping her wrist tighter. "You will never see me again, Molly." He stated the fact like an entreaty, asking her one more time to change her mind.

"That shall be my punishment then-to live everyday without you." Molly replied, slipping her wrist from his grasp.

She made her way back to her quarters, feeling calm. She fell asleep immediately, settling her wrist next to her face. She doesn't wake until after noon the day, the chime of the automatic door swishing open pulling her out of sleep.

"Molly? What are you-" McCoy asked, holding a plastic package in his hand.

"Leonard?" Molly replied blurrily from her bed.

"I brought something to help you sleep. I'll just leave it here." McCoy said, clearly embarrassed about waking her.

"Thank you." She said getting out bed to take the package from him. McCoy left as she opened the clear plastic bag. Inside was a black standard issue StarFleet turtle neck, the weave rough against her skin. The scents of sand, soap and methylene chloride rose to meet her nose.

There's a board inquiry and a formal trial, Molly is charged with aiding and abetting. Kirk testifies in her defense, telling how Khan hadn't even known her name before being abducted. It's her own testimony that seems to convince them, as she lets her own anger chime through.

They leave her the combination-four numbers: 8164-believing for some reason that it would be safe with her. She knows one day she will use it, the pressure of the empty bond finally driving her mad.

The child comes early, lending credence to her claim that she'd become pregnant weeks before she'd even met Khan-She didn't know at the time, a flu had been going around campus and she'd chalked her symptoms up to that-ship logs confirming Lieutenant Vlahovic's scan.

Molly welcomed Edmund John Hooper into the world on a rainy Tuesday. On his birth certificate she entered the name of a name no one had ever met, Erik Kelly.

She didn't tell, and nobody asked.


	11. Epilogue

Epilogue

"Would you like to hear a story, little one?" Molly asks the squirming boy in her lap, lips pressed against soft black hair. "About a brave sikh who saved a fair maiden's life."

"Yes, mummy!" Edmund responds excitedly.

"Alright, but then you have to go to sleep."

The hardest thing had been learning to sleep without him, the scent from his sweater dissipating with each passing day. When she became overwhelmed, Molly would bury her nose in Edmunds hair-his soft notes of cardamon and wet grass soothing her.

Their life, Molly's and Edmund's, was surprisingly average. A single mother and child living on the outskirts of London. After the trial and Edmund's birth, Molly had resumed her post as head of StarFleet pathology working everyday above the storage chamber where Khan and his crew slept in their cryo-tubes. Thier cold corpses a cryptic reminder that humanity creates it's own worst problems.


End file.
